Month: May 2016

Strengthening today at the cost of tomorrow

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Impetus: Washington Nationals sign pitcher Stephen Strasburg to 7-year deal/extension, worth $175 million dollars

The best thing about baseball contracts like this one is that when the day is over, seldom do the initial headlines come remotely close to the actual payouts by the teams that make these ludicrous deals, paying grown-ass men to play kids’ games.

Case in point, one of the most notorious ironically humorous baseball contracts in history is Bobby Bonilla’s contract signed in 1996.  On paper, Bobby Bonilla signed with the Florida Marlins on a deal that dictated he would be paid $23.3 million dollars over four years.  Sounds simple enough, right?

The Marlins being the Marlins (read: cheap), would eventually trade Bonilla away in 1998, but the rules of a contract state that the acquiring team assume responsibility of remaining salary, unless negotiated in the deal.  The Dodgers paid the remainder of is 1998 salary, before trading him to the Mets after the season, so the Mets would be on the hook for the 1999 and 2000 portions of his deal.

Bonilla was such a clubhouse cancer with the Mets that after 1999, the Mets wanted to be rid of Bonilla, and Bonilla was more than happy to continue his career elsewhere.  The problem was that the Mets were still contractually on the hook for the remaining $5.9 million dollars on the deal, but frankly didn’t want to pay it, citing the need to cut payroll and organizational rebuilding.

Ultimately, the Mets and Bonilla came to an agreement, which has to this very day, become one of the greatest jokes in all of baseball history, and a huge contributor to why the Mets remain such a butt of baseball jokes. 

Instead of paying Bobby Bonilla $5.9 million dollars in 2000, the Mets would pay him $0.  However, it was agreed upon that starting in 2011, the Mets would begin paying Bobby Bonilla approximately $1,193.248.20 every July 1st – for the next 25 years.

It doesn’t take a genius to quickly realize the math doesn’t even come close to equaling the $5.9 million dollars that he was owed in 2000, but closer to five times the amount, $30 million dollars, by the time 2035 rolls around.

The Mets have to live with always having Bobby Bonilla thrown at them in tacky arguments, while Bobby Bonilla, whose career ended in 2001, will cash in every July 1st for pretty much the prime of his retirement years, laughing all the way to the bank, along with the baseball fans who love to make fun of the Mets.

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Catching up with stories

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

During my weekend alone, I think I made it kind of clear that I wasn’t feeling too great, emotionally.  Catching up on writing about things kind of helped, but along the way, in between posts written, I found myself getting distracted.  I would check Facebook or play a League of Legends match, and then I’d chastise myself for squandering the opportunity of time that I had, and that I shouldn’t be wasting time doing what I could do at other times.

This was Saturday afternoon.  Since then, I haven’t played any League, and I closed Facebook everywhere; my browser, the tabs on both my iPhone and iPad, and on my other laptop.  More than anything, I think not looking at social media has been something cathartic and the forced separation something of a good thing.  What started as an evening became a day, and then it’s become several days, and at the time I’m writing this, I still haven’t checked Facebook.

The funny thing is how many times I’ve had to stop myself from almost doing so, especially over my phone, while I’m at work, in between assignments, or those fleeting moments where I want to not be doing work, catch my breath and see what’s going on elsewhere in the world.  I’ve frantically forced quit the app numerous times since then.  Eventually, I’ll check again, once routine settles back down.

But the time not spent playing League or looking at social media and thinking about either, I’ve actually, not surprisingly, been somewhat productive, in a manner of speaking; by catching up with stories.  And not “stories” as in hicks talking about television shows per say, although I am talking about some television shows; but if it weren’t for the fact that I finished reading one book, then I’d basically have entitled this whole thing “catching up on movies and shows.”

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Oh, Atlanta #543

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Wince-worthy: Atlanta’s HIV diagnosis percentages compare to, wait for it, Africa.

This is pretty much the face I made when I read the headline; just the headline.  Not just any old part of Africa, but the Third World status parts of Africa.

Like, I know it’s a serious issue, and AIDS shouldn’t really be a laughing matter, but come on now.  Busting out a story like this is just begging for all sorts of criticism, but given the fact that depending on whom you ask in the media, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, WSB is swinging at some pretty low-hanging fruit at releasing an article like this one.

It’s no secret that Atlanta is a city with an extremely heavy African-American population.  But then to go and seek out scientific evidence that a predominantly African-American area actually share one of the less reputable stereotypes about Africans in Third World Africa in general?  That’s some fucked up shit, man.

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Alone time

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I have no idea what I’m going to do when my brog is up and running again. Am I going to retroactively timestamp posts I made on the dates in which the impetus stories took place? Am I going to just post them in order as soon as things are up and running again? I don’t really know.

Frankly, I don’t know about a lot of things, and I’ve been feeling really vulnerable and uncertain about my life now, and for quite some time throughout, well, maybe all of this year. The lack of having my brog I think has given me an exorbitant amount of time to stay within my own head and think about things that probably need to be thought about, but I don’t really want to, mostly out of trepidation and anxiety.

For a site that has literally maybe six regular visitors, it means nothing to anyone really, except for me, and it’s got me dealing with some separation anxiety for my greatest and most dedicated hobby over the last 15 years. I imagine to some, it’s a place for me to spout off about opinions and veiled commentary about things in my life, which aren’t inaccurate statements, but honestly it’s a means for me to mentally vent and not just share my thoughts with those who want to read, but to kind of chronicle my thoughts and remind me that these are things that I’ve thought in my life.

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Too bad it wasn’t in Georgia

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Close, but no cigar: Trucker falls asleep at the wheel, crashes tractor trailer, spills nearly 50,000 lbs. of potatoes onto North Carolina highway

Honestly, I had reservations about posting this, because I’m envious that this happened in North Carolina and not in Georgia, but the visuals alone draw my attention, and then the words simply flow without any real effort.

But given the fact that Georgia highways have seen just about everything else other than a good side dish, spill onto them, from hams, eggs, watermelons, chips and numerous trucks full of beer, the elusive potato truck would crash just three hours away from its boundaries.

The visuals really are kind of breathtaking, seeing an alleged 50,000 pounds of potatoes all littered all over the interstate.  It’s really a crying shame that in the crash, all the diesel spilled from the truck itself and basically rendered the vast majority of the spuds inedible, because much like all the food lost on Georgia highways, 50,000 lbs. is a pretty hefty chunk of food not going to be enjoyed by fat Americans in the coming months.

I know the roads were closed, but imagine driving down I-77 not long after the incident was declared cleared.  Seeing all these balls of potatoes littered all over the shoulders and off in the surrounding areas.  Imagine just how rank the area is going to smell when all the potatoes that were not retrieved begin to rot and start stinking up the joint, because man do rotting potatoes eventually begin to reek.  Or imagine further down the line, potatoes that sprout the weird shit that sprouts from their pores, and then like, on the shoulders of I-77, a robust potato crop eventually emerges?

And to think the trucking industry is so desperately seeking anyone and everyone with the ability to drive, and phase out imbeciles like this truck’s driver, that the occupation is getting to the point where young Americans really have to start considering it as viable employment options.  When I read articles like this one, I begin to wonder if truck drivers actually make more than I do, all for basically being a glorified courier, and then my mind wanders to imagining what it’d be like to take a year to go drive trucks or something.

That time where NYC was behind the times

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

That’s so New York: Bill de Blasio calls for boycott of Chic-fil-A, because their owner hates the gays

So New York of de Blasio to now be doing something that’s CFA markets all across the United States have experienced doing since 2012.  But because it’s happening in New York, it’s making the news yet again, unearthing a horse that’s been dead for quite some time now.

The funny thing is that the Daily News article I linked does a pretty good job of cutting through the political bullshit fluff that they’re accusing de Blasio of, and that this whole stance is completely without any real moxie and for solely political reasons.  I especially like the part where they cite the Hasidic Jews that heavily donate to him, and how he takes their donations happily in spite of their very staunch and vocal stance against same-sex marriages.

Given the fact that when the original controversy erupted in 2012, Chic-fil-A’s sales actually improved in spite of the popular belief that discriminatory boycotts would hurt their bottom line, who’s to say that Bill de Blasio isn’t conducting some sort of experiment for monetary gain, by resurrecting the controversy, but in New York City, to see if CFA’s sales don’t improve again, with some sort of agreement to cut him in on the profits if they did.

Regardless, it’s funny to me to see this story emerge again, given the amount of irony that transpired the first time around.  Like New York likes to believe, if it doesn’t happen in New York, it hasn’t happened, I guess they deserve a chance to witness the ironic trail of events that’ll happen, for them to see as well, now that NYC is also now a Chic-fil-A market.

I’m convinced this is all orchestrated

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Impetus: Georgia governor Nathan Deal officially vetoes House Bill 859, AKA bill that would have allowed for legal right to carry concealed weapons on public school campuses.

Combined with the recent vetoing of HB 757, Nathan Deal is coming out looking like a fucking superhero, to those with common sense, and to those, with brains.

Given the fact that he’s Republican, and should be characterized by conservative thinking and led by the book of Jesusland, he’s either secretly still the Democrat he once was, or taking part in a blatantly elaborate song-and-dance routine where he snuffs out no-brainer oppressive and discriminatory bills to appease the Democrats, while declaring himself a Republican to appease the conservatives.

Yeah, no shit it’s a horrible idea to let gun owners carry their firearms onto college campuses.  I don’t even need to write out a bunch of doomsday scenarios that I’ve already written out before to explain why.

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